


Cruel

by deathishauntedbyhumans



Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Behavior, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, F/M, Internal Conflict, Internal Monologue, Introspection, Wordcount: 100-1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 09:45:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19827565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathishauntedbyhumans/pseuds/deathishauntedbyhumans
Summary: Gwen is very adamant to Peter B. about not talking to MJ because the MJ at Kingpin’s dinner isn’thisMJ. “I’ve gone through this before, you have to let it go,” she tells him.This is why.





	Cruel

**Author's Note:**

> I watched Spiderverse again today ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

The first thing Gwen wants to do upon seeing the footage of a _Spider-Man_ is seek him out and question him. Who is he? How did he get his abilities? Does he know who she is? Is this some kind of cosmic joke that she’s become the butt of? (It wouldn’t have been the first time.)

She follows her Sense, though, and it leads her to Visions Academy, so she doesn’t seek this Spider-Man out, no matter how much the rest of her is begging to.

When the news of _Peter Parker’s_ death hits this alternate New York’s media, Gwen isn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. (She does both.) 

Of _course_ Peter Parker was Spider-Man. Of _course,_ in a dimension where she wasn’t the one who got bit, he just happened to be on the lucky end of the spider instead. And she’d _seen_ him! She’d seen the news footage of Spider-Man, swinging through the air, saving people. He’d been doing all the things that she did, back in her own dimension. 

And now, he was dead, and she hadn’t been able to do anything to stop it. 

Maybe it _was_ some kind of cosmic joke. Maybe it was fate, or the balance of the universe, or some other crappy yin-and-yang kind of situation. Maybe Peter Parker _had_ to die in the universe she’d ended up in, because that was the only way everyone else could live. Maybe she hadn’t had a choice in the matter because it wasn’t _her_ dimension. After all, she was only a guest here. 

Or maybe, her Spider Sense had messed up, and she was supposed to help Peter out, and she’d failed to save him. 

_Again._

Gwen thinks back to the Spider that had obviously been new, to _Miles._ She’s pretty sure she doesn’t have a Miles in her universe, or that if she does, she’s never actually come across him before. (And she wonders about _herself,_ too. If there was a Peter Parker here, was there a Gwen Stacy? If Peter had been the recipient of the radioactive spider bite that had changed it all, did that mean that _she,_ in turn, had…?) He’d been so… _new._ He was older than she’d been when she’d gotten her bite, though admittedly only by a year or so.

Miles needs her help, now, she realises. _That’s_ why her Sense led her to Visions. _That’s_ why she hadn’t been allowed to save Peter. By some cruel trick of fate, she’d been brought to this dimension to save _the wrong Spider-Man._

Not that Miles isn’t great! He seems like a nice guy, past the whole… _hair_ situation. (Which, yeah, isn’t technically his fault, but Gwen is the one with half her head shaved, so she’s pretty sure she’s allowed to hold a grudge.) He seems like a Spider— kind, hero complex, easily excitable. 

But he’s not Peter. 

He’s not _her_ Peter. 

The multiverse is as evil as the villains she fights every day in her own dimension. No, it’s _more_ evil, because her villains don’t make her relive her best friend’s death by killing him again, right in front of her. 

(When she runs into Miles —and the _other_ Peter Parker— the next day, she’s as calm as she can be, even though privately, she wants to stuff her head into a pillow and scream. Because this Peter is old and fat and scruffy, but he’s _Peter Parker_ anyways. She wants to wrap her arms around him and never let him go, but she doesn’t — _can’t_ — because he isn’t _her_ Peter, either.)

**Author's Note:**

> Idk if this was coherent or not my car got stolen yesterday so I don’t exist lmao
> 
> Kudos/comments are love! Come scream at me on tumblr @deathishauntedbyhumans.


End file.
